The Crysis 3 Website now offers system specifications for Crysis 3, the next installment in Crytek's shooter series (thanks VG247). They outline the typical minimum and recommended systems for playing the game, as well as a "hi-performance" spec for the ultimate experience:

Fion wrote on Dec 3, 2012, 16:29:Actually it's the opposite. That's the point of tessellation, to add depth to an asset without increasing it's poly count.

It increases the graphical fidelity while minimising the performance hit - it does exactly what it's meant to.

Fion wrote on Dec 3, 2012, 16:29:I do agree that video looks good, but with videos you can never really know if that is the quality we'll get in the actual game. What machine was it recorded on? Is it even real time?

There's nothing in that video that makes me think it isn't real-time.

Fion wrote on Dec 3, 2012, 16:29:The simple fact is that this game, like Crysis 2, was made primarily for consoles and they simply are incapable of running a game with the fidelity of Crysis.

And most PCs couldn't / still can't run Crysis well either. As for being designed for consoles, so was Far Cry 3 and it blows Crysis out of the water. It all depends on how much effort is put into it and given that it's DX11 it's fair to say it's more than your average PC release.

The reality is that developing for consoles actually HELPED Crytek, as CryEngine was a piece of shit in performance terms and they were forced to optimise it. Games like Team Fortress 2 and Dishonored demonstrate that art direction is more important than engine specs, as you can achieve a lot with very modest specs. You keep talking in technical terms but Crysis 3 looks better visually, regardless. Have you seen the dam video? It looks like it's played with a controller but it's definitely running on PC. Nothing in the original Crysis looks better than that - it's not even close.

Given that Crysis 2 includes DX11 tessellation, it obviously has a higher polygon count.

Actually it's the opposite. That's the point of tessellation, to add depth to an asset without increasing it's poly count.

I do agree that video looks good, but with videos you can never really know if that is the quality we'll get in the actual game. What machine was it recorded on? Is it even real time? What bells and whistles did they use that isn't on by default. If anything Crysis 1 shows how many things you could do to improve it that were built right into the engine but never activated.

The simple fact is that this game, like Crysis 2, was made primarily for consoles and they simply are incapable of running a game with the fidelity of Crysis, so the engine was toned down significantly and various tricks of lighting and newer techniques like tessellation used to produce the illusion of superior graphics. But compared side by side, it's astoundingly obvious how lower quality everything 'but' the lighting is in Crysis 2 and 3.

Creston wrote on Dec 3, 2012, 15:33:Holy Bloom Balls, Batman! Damn, they put a shitload of bloom in FC2. I must have turned that off, because I don't remember all my shots being that insanely saturated.

That's maxed out in DX10 mode. The sun isn't normally that extreme - it's all related to the day-night cycle. It also depends on the map location, as the desert areas at the north (if I remember correctly) were considerably brighter than the rest of the map.

PS - Far Cry 3 has boobies! (it was blurry in-game; I need to take a better shot)

Given that Crysis 2 includes DX11 tessellation, it obviously has a higher polygon count. Meanwhile, Crysis 3 was built around tessellation from the start so it will be better implemented. Take a look at this gameplay video, because if you think that looks worse than the original Crysis you're delusional.

Fion wrote on Dec 3, 2012, 15:18:The only reason Crysis 2 and 3 appear better in some ways is the improved lighting engine. Frankly in Crysis 1 they skimped on lighting largely so the game would run on systems of the time heh.

It was simply a poorly written engine, hence why it hasn't scaled well with newer hardware. And they pushed the lighting with Crysis anyway, so let's stop with the revisionist history - it was the best available at the time. Don't forget that the competition of the time was games like Unreal Tournament 3 (with the 'cutting edge' Unreal Engine 3), so I don't know where you get the idea that Crytek held back.

Far Cry 3 has demonstrated that current multi-platform engines blow Crysis out of the water, so it's likely that Crytek will have made serious advances too - in fact the videos seem to support that. Crysis hasn't been the definitive visual leader for years and it certainly isn't now, so please stop pretending that modern games have to compete with it.

Crysis was a game that ran poorly on most systems and still does, over 5 years later. It had very good visuals but it was a terrible engine.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Dec 3, 2012, 14:12:It was certainly ahead of its time but the gameplay was a real disappointment, especially after the original Far Cry. I think Warhead improved things a lot and they tweaked the engine to improve performance and visuals too. The trouble is the engine was very poorly optimised and even hardware released years later suffers noticeably from framerate drops, whereas Far Cry 2 performed great and has scaled well to future hardware.

Holy Bloom Balls, Batman! Damn, they put a shitload of bloom in FC2. I must have turned that off, because I don't remember all my shots being that insanely saturated.

I agree about the Crysis engine. It looked fantastic, and I actually really enjoyed the gameplay, but it's ridiculous what a fucking resource hog it was. I haven't actually tried it on my current machine, but my last one (Q6600, 4Gig of ram and an 8800GT) ran high at maybe 30-35 FPS, which was ridiculously slow, relatively speaking.

LittleMe wrote on Dec 3, 2012, 10:45:I consider this a mistake on their part since I'm guessing that DX10 hardware will play it, but the DirectX 11 software needs to be installed. The low-end cards listed indeed are DX10 cards.

The low-end cards on their list are DX11 cards; there are not any DX10 cards on that list.

LittleMe wrote on Dec 3, 2012, 10:45:I consider this a mistake on their part since I'm guessing that DX10 hardware will play it, but the DirectX 11 software needs to be installed. The low-end cards listed indeed are DX10 cards.

The low-end cards on their list are DX11 cards; there are not any DX10 cards on that list.

xXBatmanXx wrote on Dec 3, 2012, 14:31:Think even a Cray research computer can run it?

Actually, I imagine it will be better optimised than Crysis 2 and the visuals look much better already. They've built it around DX11, so it's not the post-launch patch job of Crysis 2 where there were known issues with the implementation of tessellation (it was hugely inefficient). The specs really aren't that different from what's required for Crysis 2.

They did for the original Crysis but then they dropped support for it - the Steam version is 32bit only. It wasn't handled well. Crysis Warhead has a 64bit executable.

Creston wrote on Dec 3, 2012, 13:58:It's amazing how good the original Crysis still looks. :o

It was certainly ahead of its time but the gameplay was a real disappointment, especially after the original Far Cry. I think Warhead improved things a lot and they tweaked the engine to improve performance and visuals too. The trouble is the engine was very poorly optimised and even hardware released years later suffers noticeably from framerate drops, whereas Far Cry 2 performed great and has scaled well to future hardware.

John wrote on Dec 3, 2012, 13:14:When I was looking to get a new video card not long ago I was looking at all the requirements of the top FPS games and none required the best video card at that time. Although I don't recall them having a separate 'recommended' and 'hi-performance' category either..

Ahh.. Well IMO that's not the best way to go about getting a new vid card. Performance is highly dependent on your monitor's resolution, which publishers don't specify in their specs. Also they don't take into account your preference for the quality settings or frames you prefer. If it's important to you and you game on PC frequently enough, just buy the most you can afford.

Really, buying based on publisher specs is hit & miss (more miss). Their specs are suggestive. I never put too much weight in them. I'd rather them put a few charts out, depicting gpu vs cpu bound, performance scaling, resolutions, etc.. But that would probably be just too much information for what most people want to know. But there's no easy way around it, getting good game performance is not easy to understand on PC. It's been that way for a long time, too.

So in my opinion, specs like this information here is just a rough estimate of what to expect, and only to give a rough idea of how the game will perform. Too often, their specs are wrong. gl hf